High-performance pressing motion control of powder compaction press for improving the quality of green compacts was considered. With the aim to realize precise motion trajectory tracking control, physical modeling of the compacting force in powder densification process was developed and validated by iron-based powder compressibility test. A control oriented model was constructed to describe the system dynamics of the electro-hydraulic system of the powder compaction press by using the solenoid valves. Then a motion controller based on adaptive robust control (ARC) method was synthesized by back-stepping design with Lyapunov function. The controller took into consideration of the effect of parameter variations with the strongly nonlinear disturbance of compacting force coming from the powder press molding process and various hydraulic parameters as well as the effect of hard-to-model nonlinearities and uncertainties. The stability, tracking transient and final tracking accuracy of the system can be guaranteed by the controller. Experimental study was also carried out through a 1 000 kN powder compaction press prototype. The pressing motion control of the prototype machine in the iron-based powder forming cylinder compact process was used as a case study. The analysis and experimental results showed that the proposed control method achieved satisfying control performance for the powder compaction press, validating the effectiveness of the proposed control approach in practical applications. In powder forming process the tracking errors were reduced almost down to the measurement resolution level (±0.04 mm). Furthermore, the dimensional accuracy in the height direction and the density uniformity of the compacts were improved.